Kwacha, Tuesday, falls by 1 percent against US$

Zambia’s kwacha fell as much as 1 percent against the dollar on Tuesday, dragged down by worries about job losses in the local mining sector as well as concerns about the impact of waning Chinese growth.

The Kwacha fell to a session low of 9.9400 to the dollar and was last trading 0.9 percent weaker at 9.9300.

John Mapiye,head of Treasury at Banc ABC told Reuters that the news that Mopani, one of the big producers of copper in the country is going to be laying off more than 4,000 workers, sent a bit of shockwaves in the market.

Mr Mapiya says what is happening is just some panic buying of dollars, adding that weak industrial output data out of China had also weighed on sentiment.